What if we increased the Guild Member limit to get rid of the pressure of making people participate, to where Guilds can be more Socialable? Why can't we have a guild limit of like 255 players? Put the limit on the Raids themself if the problem lies there, say first 60 on the raid lock others out, then you could have different raids going and have different types of raids!

I'm not sure your specific idea is too good, but something along those lines, sure, yes, that'd be great.

As it is now, guild membership involves a subtle but powerful element of coercion. You must contribute to raids! Otherwise you're just taking up valuable space of the guild membership list.

I'd appreciate it if Venan would think carefully about whether Raid particiation limit numbers should be the same as guild membership limit numbers.

Another possibility is to divide all later-game raids into tiers, so that there is an easy tier that low-Might characters can engage while high-Might characters engage the high tier. Completion requires both tiers (or all tiers, if there are three) to be completed, and high-Might characters should be able to "mop up" the low tier after they've done their own tier, if necessary.

Peter34 wrote:As it is now, guild membership involves a subtle but powerful element of coercion. You must contribute to raids! Otherwise you're just taking up valuable space of the guild membership list.

Since the primary purpose of guilds is to raid, I don't think that should be changed. Players who don't contribute are a liability, and should be expunged from guild after guild until they find one suited to their level of interest in the game.

Peter34 wrote:Another possibility is to divide all later-game raids into tiers

I don't know how much of a bear this would be to implement, but I like this idea a lot from a conceptual standpoint. It has the aura of high fantasy, the grunts fighting orcs while Eowyn faces the Witch-King, Legolas shooting arrows at the pursuing hordes while Gandalf holds back the balrog.

Peter34 wrote:As it is now, guild membership involves a subtle but powerful element of coercion. You must contribute to raids! Otherwise you're just taking up valuable space of the guild membership list.

Since the primary purpose of guilds is to raid, I don't think that should be changed. Players who don't contribute are a liability, and should be expunged from guild after guild until they find one suited to their level of interest in the game.

Peter34 wrote:Another possibility is to divide all later-game raids into tiers

I don't know how much of a bear this would be to implement, but I like this idea a lot from a conceptual standpoint. It has the aura of high fantasy, the grunts fighting orcs while Eowyn faces the Witch-King, Legolas shooting arrows at the pursuing hordes while Gandalf holds back the balrog.

As for guilds, in other MMOs like EVE Online or World of Warcraft, guilds do fulfil an important social and teaching function. In BoH, that's delegated to General Chat, which is a very noisy place, often spammed violently with recruitment advertisements.

Dividing raids into tiers can also serve the purpose of broadening out guilds, so that they don't have to demand that all new members must be 6000+ Might or whatever. Instead, if there is a valid functional role for low-level members, it becomes more feasible to put one's low-level alt into the same guild as one's high level adventurer is in. I don't have any alts currently, but I'd like to start a War Mage some time next month (after 1.4!), but he wouldn't fit into my current guild, in terms of the Might requirements, or even the raids we do.

Of course, if raids are divided into tiers, then all Might requirements should also be removed.